Blacktown City Libraries, Blacktown City Council and WestWords are honoured to announce the highly commended and winning poets and writers of the 2024 Blacktown Mayoral Writing Prize.
These sixteen writers appear in this year’s Blacktown Mayoral publication ‘To the Point’ as well as receiving cash prizes from a prize pool of over $2,400. Physical copies are available at your local Blacktown Library.
Photo Credit Blacktown City Council
The winners and highly commended recipients were announced December 6th, 2024 at the publication launch ceremony at Max Webber Library in Blacktown.
From the judges:
“It is such an honour, privilege and joy to read through so many works bursting with creativity. And the sheer amount of entries this year – a new record for the Blacktown Mayoral Writing Prize! … To express yourself through writing is a precious gift and it was with respect and wonder that we judged the pieces submitted. There was a lot of re-reading to ensure we fairly scored the pieces, many of which were very close in quality. It is the nature of competitions that only a few can be selected for a prize and that many worthy pieces cannot be placed. We congratulate those who have won a place, and we celebrate each person who has written down their words and offered them here.”
Thank you to this year’s judges: Hemat Malak, J. Marahuyo, Shakira Piggott, Brittany Searle, Isabelle Quilty, Orlando Silver and Anna R. Walsh.
On behalf of WestWords, Blacktown City Libraries and Blacktown City Council, we hope to see you participate again in next year’s Living Stories Writing Prize (March 2025) and next year’s Blacktown Mayoral Writing Prize (June 2025).
Continue to scroll below for information on the 2024 competition call out.
Blacktown Mayoral Writing Prize 2024
Welcome to the Mayoral Creative Writing Prize 2024.
It is open to adults and children (aged 8 to 17 years) who live in Blacktown city. The poems and short stories must be works of fiction.
All entries can be either poetry or short stories. They will be judged in the following age categories:
- 8 – 11 years,
- 12 – 14 years,
- 15 – 17 years
- adult (18+)
Theme: To the point
Weave your ideas, experiences and imaginings based on this theme into your short story or poem.
Entries closed at midnight, Monday 30 September, 2024
The awards’ ceremony is in early December. Invites to the ceremony will be sent via email.
Prizes
The total prize pool is $2,400. Winners aged 17 or younger will receive $200. The school they attend will receive a corresponding $100 as an incentive to encourage the budding authors of our local area. Adult winners will receive $300. All winners and highly commended writers will have their work published in 2024 Blacktown Mayoral Anthology by WestWords.
Announcement of the prize winners
The presentation ceremony will take place on Thursday 5 December 2024, at 6 pm at Max Webber Library. All winners and highly commended recipients will be invited to attend.
This program is proudly supported by Blacktown City Council and WestWords.
Submission criteria
1. The work must be original and completed in the last 6 months.
Entries can be either:
• poem, maximum of 25 lines
• short story, maximum of 500 words.
2. Only one entry per person is permitted in each category.
3. Each entry must have one entry per online form.
4. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
5. All participants will receive a letter acknowledging the receipt of their entry and their participation. A presentation ceremony will be held on Thursday 5 December 2024, where the winners will be announced.
6. Submit entries with a completed entry form online via this link.
Judging
Your work will be judged on how original it is, how you have constructed your story or poem, the use of language, (including creative expression, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling), the way you have developed characters, atmosphere, or setting or used words in a creative way and how it relates to the theme.
It is critical that this work is original and not copied in any way, and must not have been created using any generative AI tools. Copied work will be disqualified. Short stories exceeding the 500 words limit, or poems longer than 25 lines will also be disqualified.
An independent judging panel will assess all submissions.
For more information, please contact WestWords: Western Sydney’s Literature Development Organisation, on
1800 WestWords (1800 937 896)
or by email: admin@westwords.com.au